It’s been raining like clockwork — as in spring forward brings spring showers brings Spring indeed. The lawn is greening, perennials are pushing through soil, bulbs are blooming — or swelling and swooning with bud — while shrubs and trees attempt to steal the lime-light wearing their best feathery green fringe. Not just in name, Spring is truly here.

What difference a year can bring.

After last year’s drought, I can’t imagine ever regarding rainfall as anything other than the miracle it is. These days, when I hear the first pinging upon roof vents, everything else gives way. I can think of nothing better to do than peek out windows and doorways to watch drops of all sizes hit hard scape like a dart board. Dot. Dot. Dot. The single circles of sound dissolve into a symphony of crackling static; random raindrops swirl to spill liquid, coloring outside of their lines to cover every speck of visible surface. When it reaches ground, it finally smells like rain — that inexplicably sweet, dampened earth mixed around seed and root that transforms a garden into a dwelling of possibilities.

It’s hard not to look outside without thinking about the changes this small urban property has seen in the last twelve months. Yesterday marked one-year of ownership. I no longer think about that uprooting from Mesta Park or the reasons that spurred our twenty block migration north. And while it’s true my bad knee needed a one-story home, I now like to think that this 1950s California Ranch needed me too.

By the time we closed on the purchase, this property had been through a bit of a drought too; its owners had moved away to greener pastures long before selling it. And though the house was never ugly to my eye, others didn’t share my opinion. Why even at first glance, my own dear sister wanted to know what I was going TO DO about those front porch shrubs. Like every other shrub planted without rhyme or repetition, these were starched crisp at attention in military crew-cut formation…and less I forget, my ‘meet and greet’ plantings were a mismatched set of Mutt and Jeff.

Before - Southwest Elevation

After - Southwest Elevation

To say the house didn’t ‘show well’ perhaps explains why it languished on the market for a year before we came along. To borrow words of one new neighbor — the same who walks by my house everyday, just to track the transformations taking place — it had a bad case of the blahs when she saw it during ‘open house.’

After - Southwest Elevation - Closer Perspective

No one says that anymore.

After - Looking Southwest from Front Porch

The all too-many-to-recount changes were created through good, old-fashioned elbow grease — what I once thought my grandmother kept under her kitchen sink — during the worst drought I’ve ever experienced.

Before - Southeast Elevation

Some changes were subtle while others were expansive. Yet all were important. And if I were to do it all again — heaven help me — I’m not sure what I’d do different. At least, that’s MY story. Which is not to say this place is perfect or ever will be.

After - Southeast Elevation

But I’ll crawl out on one of my green-leafed limbs to say it’s perfect enough — perfect enough to last me the rest of my life. And though I can’t point a finger at the reasons why, I know that the gifts of renewal I’ve showered upon this place have somehow strengthened me too.

We’ve bonded, this house and me, project by messy project.

Why to say this place feels as right as rain, after a long hard drought means something to me this year that it didn’t last. It means I’m home, darling, in a way that has nothing to do with labels.

One story, regardless of how good or bad, begets another. And to tell “the rest of the story” — to borrow that well-worn but never boring signature phrase of fellow Oklahoman Paul Harvey — of what transpired in my living room after my dear sister’s and aunt’s arrival on Saturday is better accomplished with camera than word:

Isn’t order a beautiful thing?

Two days later, the change is still hard to absorb, especially given how quick it happened. One might think it’d take a good eight hour day to achieve these results, but instead, it was closer to two; all total, Auntie and Sis were here four, with half the time spent at lunch and shopping at one of Sis’s favorite home furnishing stores. Of course, Sis didn’t buy a thing but both Jane and I walked out with arms full of purchases.

Sis’s decorating process is hard to describe; but I can report she’s not timid about it. She begins with big bold changes, attacking trouble spots first; at the top of her list was what to do with the hulking French armoire my husband and I do-si-doed around the room, the night before I called her. No small piece this, it could only fit in three spaces. A quick scan of the room led to instant decision and minutes after she walked in the door — I kid you not — the problem child was put in its place, just a few feet down the wall, providing immediate balance to the overall room. I didn’t even realize the south side was heavy until Sis balanced it with a few big shoves.

Sis made the rest look as easy: she centered the couch on the fireplace, traded a sofa table with a blanket chest and sent two chairs north toward the dining room to balance the armoire. Then there was an hour of fine tuning with accessories — Sis selected from candidates I produced, placing each carefully into the scene, like pieces on a chessboard. Her objective was to make whatever she grouped look attractive from all angles.

Watching the makeover reminded me a little of that familiar scene in the movie Mary Poppins, where Julie Andrews restores order in the children’s nursery with quick snapping of fingers while singing “A Spoonful of Sugar.” Of course, Sis didn’t snap or sing but made her snap changes with good old fashion heavy lifting.

Yet, I don’t think Sis fully realizes what a gift she has and is. What for me is easier “said” than done — for Sis — is easier done than said. Isn’t’ that the beauty of working with others — even leaning on others when need be — since we become more balanced by borrowing strength from another?

I’m living a life of in-between, with thoughts scattered between two homes.

I know that I should focus attention here. But the work — a long list of to-dos — overwhelms me. Which explains yesterday’s flight to sweeter thoughts and activities; instead of dreaming about my new kitchen remodel, after returning home from Kara’s and holding that sweet not-so-dainty new granddaughter of mine, I should have been productive and painted.

Why is it that since signing the purchase contract this weekend, I’m seeing my current home with fresh eyes? All I know is that I am now awake to the fact that there is more painting touch-up required than I first imagined. Doorways especially — living room french doors, the interior side of oft-used doors in the front and back — even the little midget door entrance into the basement.

But before I paint, there’s a need to remove collected clutter. And it will take time to do this properly. I must pace myself in order to sort carefully between giveaways and keepers. I know if I don’t take this work in small doses, my heart will grow hard so that even keepers will end up as giveaways or trash. Experience from last year’s clear-out of my parent’s home has taught me not to part too swiftly with evidence of everyday life.

All those books of mine — mostly unread. I fear a need to find a new home for many — as my reading taste has evolved from those acquired in the early nineties. All that cobalt blue glass, which probably needs to come out of windows to not distract potential home buyers from the charms of the house. Then there all those things we don’t part with when we should, but save for a rainy day.

It’s no small irony that today is a rainy day. An off and on again shower that is sometimes soft and steady, before hushing to a bird-chirping silence before it strikes up cymbals and lightning to drive down hard. Not pounding. But determined. As I must also be with this last bit of house-tending. God help me.

“Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? — every, every minute?”